Server Market Grows to $12.6 Billion in 2Q14

The server market has been one that has seemingly been in a state of revenue decline in recent years, but that's no longer the case. According to International Data Corporation's (IDC) second quarter 2013 Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, worldwide server revenue came in at $12.6 billion, for a 2.5 percent year-over-year gain.

The second quarter revenue growth stands in contrast with IDC's numbers for the first quarter of 2014, in which there was a 2.2 percent year-over-year decline in global server revenue.

IDC reported that server unit shipments came in at 2.2 million units for the second quarter, representing a 1.2 percent year-over-year gain. In the first quarter, IDC had reported server unit shipments of 2.1 million units.

The primary area of growth remains x86 servers, with quarterly revenue reported at $9.8 billion. In contrast, IDC reported that non-x86 server revenue came in at $2.7 billion, for a year-over-year decline of 12.8 percent. IDC noted that non-x86 server revenue has now been declining for 12 consecutive quarters.

"The server market is experiencing the beginning of a cyclical refresh cycle as systems deployed shortly after the financial crisis are retired and replaced," Matt Eastwood, Group Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Platforms at IDC, said in a statement.

"IDC expects this refresh cycle will continue well into 2015 and be further accelerated by Microsoft's announcement that it is ending support for Windows Server 2003 coupled with Intel's forthcoming release of the Grantley Xeon EP and a significant number of related server platform announcements," Eastwood continued.

From a vendor perspective, HP holds down the spot with 25.4 percent revenue share, followed by IBM with 23.6 percent share for the second quarter of 2014.